I attended the Starter Scale Event today and wanted to thank Jeff for running the event and his club for hosting the event. From the perspective of someone who has never attended a scale event, even as a spectator, it was very helpful to learn how the qualifiers operate. It was a low pressure and friendly environment with plenty of opportunities to ask questions and it was a lot of fun. The judge debriefings were particularly helpful. I look forward to attending some qualifiers and will be better prepared.

The weather for March 23 was predicted to be very nice – cold morning, warm afternoon. The prognosticators were right for a change. Morning temperatures when I arrived at the field hovered right about 40, but with moving about and all it was easy to stay warm.

The big glitch was that the locks on our container had been swapped and I did not have the key to the part I needed to get into, where the BBQ grille was and our sign about keeping the gate closed (we fly on a “secure” site – the gate has to remain closed and locked unless there is someone there at the gate – which is probably ½ mile from the field proper). At any rate, one of the other officers who did have a key showed up pretty early and volunteered to take the sign down and open the gate.

I should know by now too, that if I say “Starts at 8” I am safe showing up at 830 or 845. All the participants showed up eventually and got registered and their airplanes put together and started filling out flight plans.

Randy Warkentin was good enough to assist as caller and flight-plan coordinator and his help and insight were invaluable. Lane Davidson and Tom Ryan did the duty as judges and all the contestants found their advice extremely helpful.

First up was Brian flying an RV-4 – he did a pretty reasonable job considering he had only decided to come the night before. He wound up with a 75 on his first round

Dan Sciacca followed with a DR-1. I was calling for Dan and I have to admit – I can’t remember anything about his flight! But that’s what judges are for. Dan has flown in a couple of contests but is now getting serious. Dan pulled in an 81 on his first round.

Tim Stahlke flew third with a PA-18-150 Super Cub. It’s a good thing Tim was flying a 2.4 radio – his antennae would have been a blur! Tim blew a maneuver on his first round and wound up with a 63.75.

Ed Becker was up next with a ¼ scale Me-109. You can tell Ed has been practicing – he was very smooth, the airplane did not jerk around at all. His first flight garnered a 91.

Alex Goddard brought his Ryan STA, in an aluminum finish. Alex has been flying this airplane for a few years – I watched him the week before shooting touch and goes flawlessly – but you know what happens when you get in front of judges! Good enough to pull in a 69.5 – and that was with a blown maneuver too.

The pilots were all appreciating the difference between flying around and precision flying – putting the airplane where you wanted and doing what you wanted to do instead of letting it wander around. One big issue was not extending the legs leading up to a maneuver – they tended to cut the downwind leg short and then have to rush to line up for the maneuver. As you know, a good landing starts with a good approach - so does a good maneuver. Get plenty of room for a lead-in so you can get lined up. If it ain’t right don’t call the maneuver and go around and get lined up. Once you announce the start of the maneuver you are committed.

I did not see a lot of the rest of the flights because I was busy as a scorekeeper (note to self – bring a calculator next time!).

However – Brian improved by 4.25 points in spite of clipping a tree top, Dan improved as well, Tim made himself more nervous and had a hard landing, popping the bungee on the landing gear – but was pretty consistent with a 62.125. Ed was pushing hard too, and dropped a few points to 86.25. Alex had paid attention and managed to improve by two points to 71.5

I would like to thank, Jeff and the SACRC crew for putting on a great event, George cooks a good burger. I learned a lot from Lane and Tom, manuver placements, Headings, etc. great info,and met some great people, ED, Brian the tree clipper Chan, Tim, Alex, Randy, Fun times!!

Congratulations, Jeff, it sounds like you had a great first-time event and the new pilots learned a lot and had fun doing it. These kinds of events are and will continue to be the preferred way to interest newcomers to scale competition through a low-pressure, fly with your peers event that concentrates on familiarization, teaching, and fun. I hope that your new scale pilots also talk up the event on other aircraft social media outlets such as Scale Builder and R/C Universe and that another Starter Scale event can be planned later on in the year at yet another field in your general area.

All the guys who flew at your event could do another pro/am sportsman class event in the future... it is not a one-time deal and they would get more practice and confidence in their flying abilities in that fashion.

Kudo's to the workers at the event, particularly the oh-so-patient flight judges. Great job guys.

I would like to say a Thank You to Jeff,Randy,all that came out to help and the host club for giving the time to do this event. My Thanks also go to the pilots that steeped up to learn something new not always an easy thing to do in our hobby. Now that your feet are wet, we the USSMA are looking forward to seeing all at a USSMA contest in the future. Great Job to allCurtis KitteringhamUSSMA West Coast Vice Chairman

Just wanted to say good job Jeff. The event went well lots of nerves by some pilots others seemed like they were at home and were cool and calm. Many said that they felt much more at ease knowing what is expected and to see how the mechanics of a Qualifier is run. I too feel that this is a good way to get pilots interested in competition. I want to say that the club was not closed to the members but was also open to flying. At first I wasn't sure how this would work out but it went well with no problems at all. Club members were respective of what was going on and it all worked out very well. Jeff showed that we don't have to close the club to put on an event like this. This might depend on how many were there for the event. Thanks again Jeff and the Sacrats.